Protecting Manatees Means Slowing Boaters

October 27, 1996|By MADELAINE GONZALEZ Staff Writer

HALLANDALE - — The city - with a boost from residents who want to protect the manatees - is cracking down on speeding boaters.

To make enforcement easier, city commissioners this month unanimously approved giving names to the 11 unnamed canals within the Golden Isles and Three Islands neighborhoods that connect to the Intracoastal Waterway. Each canal will be named after the street it parallels; for example, the canal next to Sunset Drive will be named Sunset Canal.

The commission also directed its staff to prepare an ordinance changing the current 25 mph limit in the canals to idle speed/no wake - the idle speed varies with the size of the boat but the boat can't leave a wake.

If the ordinance is approved, police officers would be able to issue citations and fine boaters who speed on the canals.

The city has also posted about 10 signs that read: "Please watch for manatees, operate with care," on private properties on the Intracoastal Waterway.

The signs remind boaters to slow down because manatees travel the Intracoastal, said Tony Lilly, marine patrol officer for the Hallandale Police Department.

In 1992, a manatee was killed near the Hallandale Beach Boulevard bridge, Lilly said. Residents in the area have seen at least three other manatees injured by speeding boaters, he said. Those sightings prompted residents to authorize the signs, Lilly said. "We kept noticing the manatees and how close the boats came by our pool," said Claire Creech, a resident of Chelsea Bay View on South Ocean Drive. "We thought, `This is ridiculous, the boaters are speeding.'''

Creech said she sees about two manatees a day during the winter. Some have scars. Barry Webber, another resident whose property is on the Intracoastal, said the waterway in Hallandale is narrow, which causes the boats to come too close to the shores where the manatees swim.

"The manatees have no place to hide," Webber said.

In a related matter, commissioners also recently approved a law that will regulate wrecked and abandoned vessels and watercraft. The law will allow police to ticket the vessel owner. If the owner cannot be found, the property owner where the vessel has been abandoned must pay the cost of raising and removing the vessel, unless he can show that the boat came to be on his property without his consent.

In 1995, city commission asked the state to look into changing the 25 mph speed limit on the state-regulated Intercoastal Waterway to slow speed/minimum wake. The state has not responded to the city's request.